With a view to building up water level in the reservoir to its full level, the authorities of Nagarajunasagar dam have requested Telangana State Power Generation Corporation (TS-Genco) having its 815.6 MW capacity hydel station at the dam site to go for the reverse pumping mode of generation to help build up level by not letting water into river after power generation.
The crest gates of the spillway of Nagarjunasagar were closed at 9 p.m. on Monday and the spillway discharge at Srisailam too was stopped on Monday around 10 p.m., to build up the level in the reservoir. Officials of the Water Resources department said that the authorities of Srisailam dam too have decided to resume the spillway discharge of flood only after the dam attained full reservoir level of 885 feet and capacity of 215.8 tmc ft.
At 9 p.m. on Tuesday, the water level at Srisailam reached 884.6 ft and storage was clocked at 213.4 tmc ft. the inflows from Krishna (Jurala) and Tungabhadra (Sunkesula) were around 1.4 lakh cuecs.
“It’s estimated that the reservoir would attain full level (FRL) any time in the early hours of Wednesday and the spillway discharge too would be resumed then itself to match the inflows with outflows through the spillway discharge and generation of power in the right bank hydel station of Andhra Pradesh”, officials of the Water Resources department said.
Nagarjunasagar was getting inflows of about 43,000 cusecs with its water level reaching 587.6 ft against FRL of 590 ft and the storage was 305.86 tmc ft against its capacity of 312 tmc ft at 9 p.m. on Tuesday. About 28,000 cusecs water being let into the river after power generation could be pumped back into the reservoir with the reverse pumping mode of generation, whenever it is taken up.
In the upstream, Jurala was getting inflows of 1.1 lakh cusecs and it was discharging 86,000 cusecs flood from the 13 spillway gates and another 32,000 cusecs after power generation. Similarly, Narayanpur was getting 1.5 lakh cusecs and releasing about 1.3 lakh cusecs and Almatty was getting 1.5 lakh cusecs and the outflows were 1.75 lakh cusecs including releases to canals.
In the Godavari Basin, inflows into all reservoirs have come down considerably and into Sriramsagar they were about 5,300 cusecs and its storage stood at about 79.5 tmc ft against its capacity of 90.3 tmc ft. However, in the downstream, the flood in Godavari at Laxmi (Medigadda) Barrage was over 3.28 lakh cusecs and at Polavaram in Andhra Pradesh it was over 7.59 lakh cusecs.